Space Team: Planet of the Japes

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Wizard of Oz!” cried Dave, with perhaps more enthusiasm than anyone had ever said the words before. He twisted his face into a wicked snarl. “I’ll get you, my pretty.”

  “And your little dog, too!” Cal witch-cackled back.

  He and Dave both laughed, then turned to find Mech, Loren and Miz watching them. “What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech asked.

  “Huh?” said Cal. “Oh! Doesn’t matter. It’s an Earth guy thing.”

  “No,” said the inducto-bot.

  “Great!” said Cal. He narrowed his eyes, just a fraction. “What was the question again?”

  “The dampening field will apply only to weapons and certain enhanced abilities – psychic power, flight ability, organic energy projectiles, and so on.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Cal. “There are people who can fly? Space people, I mean?”

  “Oh, yeah, lots,” said Dave, before any of the others could respond. “There’s this one race, the Orskii – I don’t know if you remember an old cartoon called Masters of the Universe?”

  Cal’s face lit-up like a slot machine that had just hit the jackpot. “Uh… yes!” He held aloft an imaginary magic sword and cried, “By the power of Grayskull!”

  Dave whipped out an imaginary magic sword of his own. “I haaaaaave the powwwwer!”

  They exchanged a high-five. It was, Cal reckoned, the greatest high-five of his life.

  “Remember Stratos? The flying guy?” Dave continued.

  “I had the action figure. Disappointingly, it couldn’t fly, as I discovered when I threw it off the Empire State Building.”

  “Ha!” Dave snorted. “How old were you?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  Dave laughed, but it was a slightly uncertain one, like he wasn’t sure if Cal were being serious. “Well, OK! Anyway, the Orskii, they look pretty much exactly like Stratos. Just guys with beards, feathers and big goggles.”

  “Oh man, we totally have to go there!” Cal said.

  Dave tilted his head awkwardly from side to side. “Yeah, well, the thing is, they’re not exactly friendly.”

  “It’ll be fine. Who wouldn’t love us?”

  “They’re pretty violent, actually,” said Dave. He leaned in and whispered. “Sexually.”

  “Jesus. Wow,” said Cal, a little rocked by this. “I did not see that coming. OK, let’s not go there, then.” He shook his head in disgust, dismay and disappointment. “Fonking Stratos.”

  Throughout this exchange, Mech, Miz, Loren and Splurt had all watched on in silence. Splurt always watched on in silence, so there was nothing new there, but it was rare that the others would have so little to say.

  “If I may continue?” the inducto-bot asked. The tone of his voice hadn’t changed much, but there was just a hint of impatience in it now. “We have a lot more to get through before we proceed to the drop.”

  “OK, OK, sorry,” said Cal. “Continue.”

  The inducto-bot’s metal head dipped forwards in a nod. “The—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Cal. “Drop?”

  He looked from the inducto-bot to the others, then back again. “What do you mean, ‘the drop’?”

  * * *

  Cal fell.

  Mech, Miz, Loren, Splurt and Dave all fell, too, but Cal was confident he was falling faster and harder than any of those guys.

  ‘Falling’, in fact, was selling it short. He plunged. And as he plunged, he screamed, gripping his shoulder straps in soul-numbing panic, and trying very hard not to throw up.

  They were in a round pod, about half the size of the Untitled’s bridge, their backs to the curved wall so they were all facing each other in a circle. The pod rolled like a ball as it tumbled down through Funworld’s atmosphere, spinning and flipping and spiraling Cal around and around and around.

  He’d been relieved that he wasn’t the only one screaming, but had recently realized that he actually was, and that the screeches coming at him from every direction were all his own, bouncing back off the constantly revolving pod walls, floor and ceiling.

  “Oh Jesus, we’re all going to die,” Cal yelped. “It’s gone wrong. This must have gone wrong. This can’t be deliberate.”

  “What can’t be deliberate?” asked Miz, scraping some dirt out from beneath her claw with a tooth.

  “This!” Cal cried, removing a hand from his shoulder strap, briefly gesturing around the pod, then quickly grabbing hold again.

  Miz raised her eyes and looked around. “Oh. Wait, are we moving?”

  “Yes,” said Loren. “Downwards and – I think – in a spin.”

  “You think in a spin?” said Cal, his stomach backflipping as the wall became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor.

  “I didn’t ask you,” Miz said, scowling at Loren.

  “You didn’t not ask me, either. You asked generally. I answered.”

  Splurt sat between them, kicking his legs and bobbing excitedly in his seat. When Cal met his eye, Splurt waved his flag so fast it became little more than a blur. The added motion made the visual center of Cal’s brain howl in protest, so he shut his eyes and swallowed several times, in the hope he could force the rising nausea back down.

  “You OK, man?” asked Mech from Cal’s left. “You’re looking kinda green around the girls. You’d better not puke on me.”

  “No, I’m not OK,” Cal snapped. “Do I look OK?”

  “No, you do not. That’s why I asked. That’s why I said, ‘Are you OK?’ and that you’re green around the girls.”

  “Well, it was a stupid question! Of course I’m not OK,” Cal told him. “And it’s gills.”

  “Say what?”

  “It’s ‘green around the gills’, not girls.”

  “But you ain’t got gills. That don’t make no sense.”

  “It makes more sense than ‘green around the girls’!” Cal pointed out. “I mean, what does that even—?”

  The pod stopped suddenly. Not Loren coming out of warp suddenly, but suddenly, all the same. Cal let out an involuntary scream, which he followed up quickly with a voluntary one, before ending on several seconds of relieved weeping as a mechanical voice chimed out from the pod’s speaker system.

  “We have arrived. Welcome to Funworld – a world so fun you’ll never want to leave!”

  “Oh, thank God,” Cal wheezed.

  And then, with a hurp, he vomited on the floor.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The drop pod door swished open, and Cal tumbled out onto a rubber mat. He lay on it, face down, hugging it with his body weight, until Mech barked at him to, “Get out of the fonking way,” and threatened to step on him.

  Standing up was completely out of the question. The pod may have stopped spinning, but everything else in the universe was still going at it. Cal caught glimpses of a blue-green sky, some colorful buildings, and not a whole lot else as he dragged himself forwards on his hands and knees, making room for the others to exit the pod.

  The ground beneath him became hard and uncomfortable against his palms. He tried to keep going, but his brain and body teamed up to put a stop to it. They’d both been through quite enough in the past few minutes, thank you – not to mention the previous few weeks – and this was the last straw.

  Cal’s arms gave way. He fell, partly on the rubber mat, partly on a paved surface, and hiccupped out another little mouthful of sick.

  A pair of Nikes appeared in his line of sight. Dave squatted down and put a hand on Cal’s back. “The first time can be pretty rough. Sorry, I should have warned you. You must be pretty new to all this.”

  “To Funworld?” Cal groaned. His face was squished against the ground, and made the words come out at an odd angle.

  “To space travel. After a while, you barely notice that stuff. I guess you get flipped around so much you learn to adjust.”

  “Yay,” said Cal, raising a shaky thumb in celebration. “That’s something to look forward to.”

  Loren and Mi
z both grabbed him by an arm and started hoisting him to his feet. “It’s fine, I’ve got him,” said Loren.

  “What? Yeah, right. I totally had him first,” Miz argued. She yanked on Cal’s arm, pulling him towards her, but Loren held on tightly, and tugged him back the other way.

  “I told you, I’ve got him,” she insisted.

  “I’m stronger,” Miz warned. “I can pull him way harder. I could pull his arm right off.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Loren. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “I fonking wouldn’t!” Cal protested. “Also, ow.”

  He inhaled deeply through his nose, then glanced between the two women. “I’m fine. Thank you for your help. You can let go.”

  “See? You can let go,” sneered Miz.

  “You let go,” said Loren.

  “You can both let go,” said Cal. “Also, again, ow.”

  “OK, but her first,” Miz said.

  “What? No! You first,” said Loren.

  Mech tutted. “Just let the motherfonker go,” he instructed.

  Loren and Miz swapped glares. “Fine,” said Loren, releasing her grip.

  “Whatever,” said Miz, releasing hers.

  “Thank you,” said Cal. “See? Totally not a problem,” he added, seemingly unaware of the fact he was toppling sideways.

  The moment he hit the ground, Miz and Loren both pounced, but Dave got to him first. “Uh, it’s fine. Why don’t I give him a hand?” he said, smiling nervously at both women, as if waiting for their approval. When they both stopped advancing, he took that as the go-ahead to support Cal in his efforts to get – and more importantly, stay – upright.

  “Well, that was kind of embarrassing,” Cal admitted, once back on his feet. He took a few deep breaths and shut his eyes for a couple of seconds.

  When he opened them again, the world was… wobbling, which was significantly better than spinning or somersaulting, both of which it had been doing just a moment ago.

  He nodded to Dave, who released the grip on his arm. Cal swayed on the spot, but managed to remain standing.

  “OK. OK, it’s all good,” Cal said, forcing a smile. “Just a little motion sickness, but it’s gone now. I’m all set and raring to go.”

  Splurt grabbed his hand and gestured towards a towering Helter Skelter type ride that rose several hundred feet into the air.

  “Christ, no!” Cal spluttered. “Have you lost your fonking mind? Look at that thing!”

  “Besides, we ain’t here to have fun,” said Mech.

  Dave frowned. “You came to a place called Funworld, and you’re not here to have fun?”

  Cal groaned. “Aw, come on, don’t look at me like that, buddy,” Cal said, doing his best to avoid Splurt’s moist-eyed gaze. “Isn’t there, like, a Hook a Duck stall or something we can do? Maybe we can win you a coconut. Or, you know, the space equivalent.”

  He met Mech’s glare. “A space coconut,” he said, then he narrowed his eyes. “Oh yeah. I’m totally reclaiming that, bedge.”

  Mech gave a grunt, but said nothing. Cal nodded in satisfaction, then his moment of victory collapsed when he saw Splurt gazing up at him again, his bloodshot eyes all hopeful and imploring.

  “Aw, come on, Splurt,” Cal groaned. “I literally threw up in my mouth less than three minutes ago.”

  “I’ll take him,” said Loren and Miz at the same time. They scowled at each other.

  “Fine,” said Loren. “You do it.”

  “Whatever,” Miz snapped. “You go.”

  They both looked down in surprise when Splurt took their hands in his. He gripped them tightly in his smooth, fingerless stumps, his flag now nowhere to be seen. He concentrated for a moment. At first, nothing happened, but then the flag grew slowly from the top of his hat like a sprouting tree. He bobbed happily as the flag wagged back and forth like a dog’s tail, then he set off towards the Helter Skelter, dragging Miz and Loren behind him.

  “Hey, let go, you little weirdo,” Miz protested.

  “Splurt, what are you doing?” Loren asked, but then they were out of Cal’s earshot, and he was too relieved to intervene.

  “Have fun, you crazy kids!” he called.

  Now that the world had settled down and become relatively stable, Cal noticed the rest of the surrounding area for the first time. It resembled a low-rent traveling carnival. And not even a good low-rent traveling carnival. If there was a scale of low-rent traveling carnivals, then this one would have staked out its territory somewhere near the bottom some years ago, and been slowly dropping in the charts ever since.

  The paint was peeling on pretty much everything, the colors all long-faded by the sun. Rusted hydraulics and grease-soaked machinery were clearly on display around some of the rides, and litter blew like fall leaves across the stone slabs, occasionally snagging on the weeds that had stubbornly forced their way up through the gaps.

  There were a few sideshows and circus-style tents with weary-looking robots standing guard beside them. None of the bots were moving, and Cal wondered if there really had been a Tin Man epidemic that had left them all frozen in place.

  Most of the rides looked like variations of those found on Earth. There was the Helter Skelter, some kind of hovering bumper car set-up, a small roller-coaster, and a carousel featuring grotesquely misshapen alien figures, all wearing saddles. Beyond those were several other rides, all similarly awful-looking, and a handful of buildings that seemed to be stores, fast-food joints and maybe a hotel. Further still, past all those, a wall stretched a full hundred feet or more towards the sky. It curved around the entire area, penning Cal and the others in the center of a wide circle roughly a couple of miles across.

  The only thing the place had going for it was scale. The rides, like the wall, were enormous. They had clearly been designed to cope with vast numbers of visitors. Now, though, with the park all but empty, it just made them look a bit desperate and over-eager to please.

  “Well,” said Cal, putting his hands on his hips. “This is…”

  “Fonking terrible?” said Mech.

  “Well, that isn’t quite how I’d…”

  Cal looked around.

  “No. No, you’re right. It’s terrible. This is not what I expected at all.”

  Dave folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. He tried to hide a grin, but his excitement shone through. “Oh? And what were you expecting, exactly?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cal. He shrugged. “Something, you know, exciting.”

  “Something exciting, huh?” said Dave. He glanced around and upwards, looking for something. “Five, four, three, two…”

  A scream rang out from inside one of the tents. The structure shook as something that threatened to make Cal start vomiting again tore its way free, hissing and snarling and shrieking all at the same time.

  It looked like it had once been humanoid, but had become twisted and warped somehow. It was mostly bald, aside from its bare back. Its chest suggested it was a woman. Three women, actually. All six breasts were different sizes, pocked with crater-like scars and burns, and jiggled disturbingly. She… No, it. Definitely an it, Cal thought. It scratched at its sinewy arms and clawed at its neck as it ran forwards, off-balance on its gnarled back legs. Or maybe just ‘legs’, since the front two were more like arms.

  Its eyes were ringed with black, its mouth and cheeks awash with crimson red. There was a collar around its neck, a broken chain trailing from the back of it.

  “The slorg!” hollered a voice from inside the tent. “The slorg is free!”

  “What the fonk’s a slorg?” Cal wondered.

  And then it hit him. Not the answer to his question, but the actual slorg itself. Its misshapen, multi-breasted body crashed into him and knocked him back onto a ground he was becoming a little too painfully familiar with.

  The weight of the thing was immense – far more than its gnarled frame would suggest. It pinned Cal beneath it, its purple tongue flicking hungrily across rott
ing teeth, dribbling hot saliva into Cal’s eyes.

  “Jesus Christ! Mech, what the fonk are…? Get it off me!” Cal protested, trying to push the thing away, but struggling to find a place to put his hands that wouldn’t lead to a potential groping charge somewhere down the line.

  “I ain’t touching that thing!” Mech barked.

  “Then shoot it!” Cal yelped. “Hurry up and shoot the fonker!”

  Mech raised his arm and fired.

  Or tried to fire, but didn’t. Where his arm blaster should have launched a powerful bolt of energy at the slorg, all it managed was a faint hum and a soft click.

  “Ain’t working,” Mech said.

  “It’s the dampening field,” Dave explained. He looked far too relaxed about Cal’s current predicament, Cal thought. “Guns don’t fire. Guns from outside, anyway. Fortunately…”

  He rummaged in a pocket and produced a tiny blaster pistol. It looked like something that might fall out of a Christmas cracker, and be immediately lost among the paper hats and awful jokes. He turned it over in his hands a few times, muttering about an on switch.

  Having now accepted the fact that help wasn’t coming any time soon, Cal jammed his forearm against the slorg’s throat, twisted violently, and managed to roll around so he was on top of the thing.

  “Aha!” he cried, then his momentum carried him all the way over, and he found himself pinned beneath it again, his face awash once again with hot, sticky slobber.

  “Got it,” said Dave. He took aim with his little gun and pulled the trigger. A thin beam of light, like the glow from a torch, hit the Slorg.

  It exploded immediately, spraying custard-like yellow innards over Dave, Mech and Cal.

  But mostly Cal. Almost exclusively Cal, in fact, with just a light mist of the goo reaching the others.

  Cal sat up, frantically scooping the sludge from his eye sockets and blowing it out of his nose. “What… What the Hell was that?” he wheezed.

  “That, I think you’ll agree,” said Dave, blowing make-believe smoke from the barrel of his tiny pistol. “Was exciting!”

  * * *

  Loren had spent all her teenage years training for her Zertex cadetship. Part of that preparation had been physical, and she’d prided herself on her ability to run for miles carrying a heavy pack, then dish out a flying roundhouse kick to whichever unlucky cadet was partnered up with her for combat training.